


we're close to close enough

by Madeofsequins



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Sad But Getting Better, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Pre-Epilogue, adam pov, post-trk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 23:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13624131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madeofsequins/pseuds/Madeofsequins
Summary: It takes just days for everything to fall apart and a lifetime to put it back together.(Snapshots from the first year of learning to live: Ronan and Adam, grieving and healing and growing, after the world stops and starts up again.)





	we're close to close enough

Adam knows that Ronan Lynch, even on his very best days, is a difficult choice in a friend, a nearly impossible one as more than that. He’s known this from the very first day he met Ronan, and from the very first time Ronan spoke to him -- which was three full days later. He had known this, and he weighed the knowledge heavily in his head and his heart, and he’d made his choice.

They had one good day, before everything imploded.

Adam refuses to regret his decision, pushing any lingering doubt aside in favor of the image of Ronan’s eyelashes fanned darkly over his cheekbones in a rare moment of peaceful sleep, the feeling of bone and muscle and ink under his wandering hands. Adam Parrish has long since ceased to operate in “what if”s, and he has no intention of starting now. Even so, it doesn’t make the weeks and months that follow any easier.

That one good day feels like a lifetime ago.

\--

If Adam hadn’t already raged and grieved at the utter unfairness of the world years ago before finally being resigned to acceptance, he’d surely be coming up against it now with fists and curses and a carefully curated set of choice words.

He finds himself longing for Ronan’s fists and curses and choice words of his own, familiar and easy to interpret after all this time. Instead, Ronan’s grief is mostly silent. He doesn’t come to school, and Adam hopes he’s spending the days working around the Barns instead of sitting in terrible silence, lost to his own thoughts.

Adam almost never sees Ronan at night. He doesn’t yet have the conviction to invite himself to stay over at Monmouth after the first night (that night, everyone had stayed, and it felt like an affirmation of life rather than the usual charity), and Ronan hasn't actually asked him to stay. Ronan comes by St. Agnes often in the evenings -- sullen and silent but clearly seeking company -- but he refuses to sleep there these days. He doesn’t invite Adam to his room when Adam stays over at the Barns, either, not forthcoming on what has been filling his dreams as of late but clearly unwilling to expose Adam to any of it.

That lasts a few weeks. Adam, irritable and concerned and irritable that he can’t act on his concern, is woken up in the middle of a weekend night at the Barns by what he’s come to recognize as Chainsaw’s most alarmed screech, echoed nearly immediately by the Orphan Girl.

Ronan is awake but still unmoving, disembodied talons clenched around his throat. Adam feels a sick twist in his stomach, a roiling mix of horror and panic and remembered guilt.

“ _Ronan_ ,” comes out of his mouth all wrong, fear expressed as exasperation. He sits carefully at the edge of the bed, prying away the thankfully-unmoving talons. He chokes down nausea when his hands come back damp with blood; he can see it mixed with sweat, running down Ronan’s shoulders, disappearing into the bedsheets, into the ink of his tattoo.

Ronan, now released from his paralysis, scowls up at him. “Don’t mollycoddle me, Parrish; it’s unbecoming.”

Adam runs his tongue over his teeth and pauses a moment before shooting back, “You woke me up, asshole.” That has the benefit of being true, if not really want he wants to say, and he lets his turbulent emotions lend a sarcastic bite to his words. He simultaneously softens them by trailing his fingers carefully down the nape of Ronan’s neck, across his shoulders and collarbones. There’s not as much blood as he’d originally thought. “You look like you got into it with a vampire.” After a beat, he adds, “and lost.”

Ronan is still frowning, irritated at the entire ordeal, or Adam's unclever words, or both, but he leans into Adam’s fingertips anyway. “Get rid of that shit, will you?” He gestures toward the talons. “I’m gonna,” he stands suddenly, making moves toward the bathroom, without bothering to finish the sentence.

Adam makes a face at him on the principle of not appreciating being ordered around, but gathers up the mess as soon as Ronan turns the hallway corner, anyway.

After double-bagging and discarding the gruesome little scene into the garage trash, he waits a long time for Ronan to come back to his bed. He forces himself to stay awake even as his brain helpfully calculates he was to wake up in four and a half hours to get to work on time, but it seems worth the small victory that is Ronan returning and not commenting on his presence. He curls himself slightly and silently against the curve of Adam’s chest. Adam doesn’t stay awake long enough to know if Ronan ever does go back to sleep, but night turns to dawn without further interruption.

\--

Gansey finds Adam at his locker, where he’s packing up after last period. Adam is so tired that it’s difficult to remember which books he needs to pack for tonight, which can be left behind to deal with tomorrow, or the tomorrow after that.

“Are you working this afternoon?”

Adam’s vision blurs around his physics book. “Hmm?” He turns his head. “Oh. No, I swapped with Jim for Friday.”

Gansey bites his lip. Adam can tell he’s trying to remember if he’s supposed to know who Jim is. “Right! Do you want to come by Monmouth for a bit?”

“Why?” Chagrin darkens Gansey’s open features. “Sorry. I mean, sure -- why?”

“No real reason. Blue’s coming by, as well. I thought we might all -- hang out.”

“Is that a thing we do?”

“Isn’t that what we were doing all along?”

He has a point. Glendower stuff minus Glendower probably equals hanging out. Adam wouldn’t really know.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. I’ll follow you over.”

Ronan’s BMW squeals into the lot just as Gansey is locking up the Camaro. Adam guesses Ronan has been summoned, too. He hopes Gansey did not use the words “hang out” when speaking to Ronan, at least not without him there to witness it.

Gansey goes to unlock the door for Blue, waiting there with her bike, and Adam waits in the lot for Ronan to park. The crisp autumn breeze ruffles his jacket, not warm enough for the coming winter. After several increasingly chilly moments, he starts toward the driver’s side of the BMW where Ronan is deliberately stalling.

Adam raps a staccato on the window until Ronan rolls it down. The shadows under his eyes are so dark they nearly match the bruises around his neck, just starting to fade. Adam sucks in a breath. “You look like shit.”

“I wasn’t aware there was a dress code for Mandatory Teenage Fun,” Ronan replies icily.

Adam reaches through the open window and releases Ronan’s seatbelt. It snaps against Ronan’s neck on its way back to retraction, and Adam winces. “Sorry.” Ronan blinks at him. “C’mon.”

Ronan blinks again and opens the door with exaggerated slowness, folding his long legs out of the car one at a time. Adam keeps his forearms rested on the open window and waits him out.

Once fully upright, Ronan hip checks him. His lips curl into an unhappy frown but he heads toward the front door, the slump of his shoulders and the drag of his boots through the gravel broadcasting his reluctance. Adam squares his own shoulders and follows.

-

It feels strange, the four of them sitting in Monmouth. It shouldn’t -- they’ve done this dozens of times before -- but now everything is different. In the initial moment of silence after they arrange themselves around the room, Adam has the panicked thought that there’s nothing left to talk about now that they’ve seen their quest through.

“Where’s Opal?” Blue asks. She’s probably just curious -- it’s rare to see Ronan without her, these days -- but her curiosity is sharp enough that Adam’s sure Ronan will interpret it as an accusation.

“Jesus, Sargent, she’s at the Barns. Where she lives. You want to call CPS on me?” He throws his phone on the floor at her feet before sliding down the wall and sitting on the floor. He reaches for a piece of mail of dubious importance and starts to rip it up, rolling the strips into little balls and throwing them at Chainsaw.

“Is that our electrical bill?” Gansey asks, deceptively mild.

“Not anymore.”

“Ronan--” Gansey sounds very old and very tired, just then. Blue reaches for his arm.

Ronan remains committed to shredding the bill. Adam watches from across the room, silently taking in the tense set of Ronan’s shoulders. He knows to pick his battles and knows when to let Ronan fight his own. A ripped-up bill isn’t just a ripped-up bill, today.

Blue meets his eyes and offers a knowing, sad half-smile. He can tell by her expression she, too, now knows the feeling of caring for someone in pain, someone drowning in loss, and also recognizes that there’s only so much comfort she can provide.

Adam knows he can’t save Ronan. For the majority of the time he’s known Ronan, he had no interest in fighting his demons for him, and had always resented Gansey for his attempts to do so. Ronan’s pain had made him reckless, cruel, cold. Now, his pain just hurts; Adam feels it too. He wants to do something to ease it, but he knows intimately what it’s like to be offered unwanted help. He thinks Ronan likes that Adam never tried to fight his battles for him. He likes that about himself.

But he doesn’t like the hollowness in Ronan’s eyes, the sleepless nights, the long and heavy silences. Adam Parrish, problem-solver and over-planner, does not like not having a plan of action.

What he does have is a distraction. He cuts in with an open question about the Tennessee Williams play they’re reading in AP English at both Aglionby and Mountain View, conveniently enough. He pauses a second to appreciate the strangeness of intervening between Ronan and Gansey, when usually it’s Ronan doing that for them (albeit with more colorful language and less tact). When he raises his eyes to meet Ronan’s across the room, he knows it’s not lost on Ronan either. Ronan stills, looking and looking at Adam, until Chainsaw jabs at his hand and he returns to his furious act of micro-destruction.

\--

Adam had thought, before, of being in a relationship in an abstract way, the way he thought about living in a sleek, modern apartment and having a sleek, modern job and driving a sleek, modern car.

His relationship with Blue had not been that -- Blue is neither sleek nor modern and has no interest in decorating the arm of anyone who places importance on those sorts of things. His relationship with Blue had also been over before he could decide how he felt about that conflict between expectation and reality.

He had certainly not thought about having that with Ronan, not in the way of going on dates or buying flowers or asking, “when can I see you again?” (Ronan’s idea of a night on the town is trying to break the sound barrier in his BMW, can dream up flowers that don’t even exist in nature, and now they’re two boys with no parents between them who already spend most of their time together.)

He couldn't picture Ronan in such a conventional and mundane context then, during a relatively peaceful time of Ronan at his least difficult, and he wouldn't dream of asking it of Ronan now, at his most distraught.

Instead, when he thought of being with Ronan, even before, it had been thoughts of dark eyelashes and sharp, pleased smiles, jagged edges and fierce kisses.

Now, he is with Ronan, and Ronan’s eyelashes are as dark and pretty up close as he’d imagined they would be, his jagged edges are sharper than ever. But Ronan never smiles anymore, and he when he kisses Adam, it feels like he’s trying to drown.

\--

When Adam comes by Monmouth on a crisp Sunday afternoon in late fall, uninvited this time but as far as he knows not unwelcome, he finds Gansey first, alone in the warehouse’s large open area. Gansey lifts his head and offers a small smile, looking for all the world like he’s about to launch into his latest theory about their quest. That lasts a split second before his expression twists in a way Adam can tell means he’s remembering that Glendower is dead and that Adam probably isn’t here to see him, anyway.

Only one of those things is strictly true. So despite the way his gaze, in a familiar and unsettlingly way, demands to slide toward Ronan’s closed door, he settles on the floor next to Gansey and cardboard Henrietta. With Ronan shut away and Noah gone, the emptiness of Monmouth feels larger and more gaping than ever. Adam can’t imagine how Gansey stands it, day after day.

“He's sleeping, I think,” Gansey offers, nodding his head in the direction of Ronan’s room. Adam raises an eyebrow. “Well. Maybe. It's been quiet in there for a bit.”

Adam hopes that's true. “Maybe,” he agrees. “Did you start on the problem set for calc?”

Gansey blinks at him, as if he can't imagine a world in which calculus has even crossed his mind today, this week. Adam is simultaneously sympathetic and envious; he, too, can't wrap his mind around treating schoolwork with a fraction of its previous gravity considering everything else that's happened -- but he doesn't have the luxury of slacking off. He drags his textbook and himself off the floor with a sigh.

When Ronan emerges from his room nearly an hour later, both Adam and Gansey are immersed in the problem set, or at least pretending to be. Adam looks up at the sound of the door and meets Ronan’s eyes, which are bleary enough to suggest he was actually sleeping.

Ronan looks from Adam to Gansey and back again. “What’re you doing here, Parrish?” If he's trying to sound nonchalant, he's unsuccessful in doing so. Adam could attribute that, maybe, to Ronan still clawing his way out of sleep, or, more likely, his Ronan translation skills are improving.

“Homework,” Adam replies, all business, but offers a tiny grin toward Ronan that he knows Gansey won't see.

Ronan grimaces and pads across the room to settle on the floor in front of Adam. Chainsaw swoops in low from behind Ronan, pausing briefly to peck at Adam's hair before changing course upwards to settle herself in the rafters. Adam nudges at Ronan’s spine with his stocking feet and is rewarded with a tiny jolt of satisfaction when Ronan leans back into his shins. He kicks one more time for good measure before allowing his left hand to rest on Ronan’s bare shoulder, where he rubs absently at a knot of tension, brushing his thumb over scabbed-over puncture wounds.

His thought race, calculus easily forgotten in lieu of wondering if this is too much, too physical, too public, or is it not enough, these little touches, insignificant words, their struggle to have a conversation in which they actually say anything real.

“Sleep well?” Gansey asks, deliberately neutral. Adam doesn’t look up from his worksheet, but he can feel practically Gansey watching his fingers, still tracing patterns over Ronan’s skin.

Ronan rolls his eyes in practiced irritation. “Like a fuckin’ baby.”

Gansey smiles and flicks a piece of paper he’s folded into a triangle at Ronan. “We can catch you up on the problem set; we’re almost done.”

“You’re certifiable, man.” Ronan rolls his eyes again, then settles further back against the base of the couch and Adam’s legs. He starts picking at the frayed threads of Adam’s jeans.

Adam kicks at his hip. “Quit.” His accent slips out, nearly breaking the work into two syllables. Ronan snakes his head around and bites at the hand Adam is resting on his shoulder.

The room feels lighter, like it could be a weekend afternoon at Monmouth from months past. Adam knows it can’t last, not today, not yet, but he lets himself enjoy these few easy moments before they’re gone.

\--

The days get shorter, and so does Ronan’s temper. His restless discontent seems too big to be contained by the town of Henrietta, or even the entirety of Shenandoah County. He comes by St. Agnes in the dark afternoons, stomping up the stairs, around the tiny living space, back down the stairs when Adam can’t give him the attention he seeks.

“Parrish, your essay or whatever-the-fuck that is, how does that _matter_?”

“We’re not actually having this conversation again, are we? If time really is circular, it could pick a better reel of greatest hits.”

“Real funny. The world basically ended and you’re holed up here with this Catcher in the Rye bullshit?” Even Ronan has to know _The Catcher in the Rye_ is on the Sophomore English syllabus, but that’s hardly the point.

__

__

“If you have somewhere better to be, then by all means,” Adam gestures jerkily toward the door.

Ronan inhales like he’s about to say something else, but he changes his mind before any words escape. He’s tense from top to bottom, and Adam knows he’s itching for a fight. Adam wants to smack him, wants to kiss him, too, but he stays quiet. He’s found it best to be agreeable when Ronan is not, though it annoys him to no end when he’s the disagreeable one and Ronan does the same.

Ronan spins on his boot heel and stomps toward the door. “Whatever. Later, man.”

Adam deliberately returns to his essay while Ronan can still see him. “Okay. Later.”

He hopes that Ronan is at least leaving for the Barns. Better for him to stomp around there where there’s no one to hear him except Opal and Chainsaw, who probably serve as a more appreciative audience. However, given the frequency at which Gansey arrives at school weary and irritated, that clearly isn’t always the case.

Adam wants to be able to give more time, more focus -- Ronan so obviously needs something more than what he’s getting, even if he can’t properly ask for it -- but school and work and work and work are immovable entities to which Adam is beholden. If he can just get through the week, through the semester, then he’ll have some time to breathe. He can figure out how to deal with Ronan, how to deal with himself; he’ll reserve more quality time for his friends; he’ll pay a visit to Fox Way.

As much as Adam wants it to, his normal life won't wait just because his best friend died, his maybe-boyfriend almost did, just because magic and demons are very real and very dangerous. Unfortunately, he's pretty sure that Ronan can't wait, either.

Sometimes, Ronan will slip quietly back into Adam’s room late at night, his stomping urges exorcised elsewhere. There are nights when he falls into a rare, alarmingly deep sleep, and those nights, Adam stays awake, whispering “tell me what you need” into the twists and whorls of Ronan’s tattoo.

\--

Adam spends the Christmas holiday at the Barns with Ronan, allowing himself the rare luxury of staying over multiple nights while the rest of the world stumbles into a holiday stasis.

Gansey had extended an invitation for Adam to join him in DC. The invitation prompted a brief but intense slidedeck of images: the wad of business cards from the summer party that sit neatly stacked and largely untouched on Adam’s desk, the empty, haunted look Ronan had worn for weeks after the Fourth of July, Gansey choosing his words very carefully when he told Adam about the event, the email confirmation of his early-action application to Princeton, the rise and fall of Ronan’s chest last week when he’d actually slept nearly five hours straight.

It’s not a historically Adam Parrish thing to do, declining an opportunity that could move his academic and career path significantly forward in favor of spending the weekend in or around Henrietta. Probably the only thing moving forward over Adam’s Christmas will be his and/or Ronan’s body astride some motorized farm equipment, racing each other and/or the friendly, nimble herd of deer who reside in the back field. Adam is slowly trying to redefine what are and are not Adam Parrish things to do. He’s even more slowly trying to be okay with that.

Adam finishes the last of his midterms at noon a few days before Christmas. He feels like he hasn't slept in three days, maybe more. He can’t quite recall if that’s actually true. When Ronan greets him in the Barns’ driveway, he looks like he hasn't slept in three days, almost certainly more. But the property, from what Adam can see, looks nice - cleanly trimmed hedges, lawns cleared of leaves, a fresh coat of paint on the eaves of the main house.

Adam hears a shriek and the clatter of tiny hooves that can only mean Opal is already undoing Ronan’s cleanup effort. Ronan smells strongly of coffee and seems ready to jump out of his skin. Adam thinks he might be able to see Ronan’s pulse fluttering rapidly at the neck of the surprisingly emerald green sweater he’s wearing. He eyes the sweater, short in the sleeves and tight at the shoulders and unfairly attractive on Ronan, speculatively.

“Laundry day,” Ronan responds to Adam’s stare, fixed on the unfamiliar item of clothing.

“You know how to do your own laundry, Lynch?”

“Fuck off.” His mouth twists into a thin smile. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

“Mmhmm. Your place cleans up nice, anyway. Even if you don’t.” Adam very deliberately sets aside thoughts of a stuffy DC party and anxiety about his college applications and peeling that damn sweater off over Ronan’s head, instead knocks his shoulder, hard, into Ronan’s. “Where’s that tractor that needed looking at?”

\--

Declan and Matthew come back to Singer’s Falls for Christmas Eve. Adam mostly wishes they hadn’t. They arrive late with just enough time for Matthew to change and Declan to start riling Ronan up before the three of them have to leave for Midnight Mass.

“Parrish, you coming?” His tone implies that he doesn’t care one way or the other; his eyes tell a different story.

Adam rolls his shoulders. “No.” He looks at Declan, adds, “thank you.”

Ronan’s lips twist. “‘Kay. I’ll say hi to your shithole for you.”

Declan might be frowning behind his politician mask; Adam can’t tell for certain. Adam is definitely frowning. “Don’t be an asshole. It’s Christmas.”

“ _It’s Christmas_ ,” Ronan whines in a falsetto.

“I got you a lump of coal, but I should’ve gotten you some manners.”

“You’re hilarious, Parrish.” Ronan follows his brothers out the door and makes a noisy show of slamming the door. Opal pops her head up from behind the couch. “Kerah?”

Adam sighs. “He’ll be back.” He holds up a textbook. “Don’t suppose you want to help with my Latin homework?” Opal shrieks and lunges at the book, bared teeth aimed right for the cardboard cover. Adam moves it out of her direct line of sight and sighs again.

-

Adam means to stay awake until they return, but the next thing he knows, he’s waking up to the smell of coffee and something burning. He honestly can’t remember if he walked himself to Ronan’s room, although the alternative -- Ronan having carried him here -- is so horrifying that he immediately dismisses it.

He rinses out his mouth and splashes water on his face before padding into the kitchen. It’s hazy with smoke. Matthew is ineffectually waving a dish towel in the general direction of the stove, like he’s trying to copy something he’s seen on TV but doesn’t really understand, until he sees Adam.

“Morning, Adam!” The towel stills. “We were cooking Christmas breakfast, but none of us know how to cook!”

“I know how to cook,” Ronan grumbles lowly before ducking his face back into a massive mug of coffee.

“You do not.”

“I don’t cook, doesn’t mean I can’t.”

Adam rolls his eyes.

Declan makes an undignified and uncharacteristic grunt of frustration and tries to herd Matthew out of the kitchen.

“This is pathetic. Orphans’ first Christmas.” Ronan’s words are biting, but Adam can tell the truth of it is painful. “What the fuck was Declan thinking?”

“It could be worse.”

“It could always be worse, Parrish, but that doesn’t mean it’s not pathetic.”

Adam takes a half step sideways and rests his head against Ronan’s shoulder. “Yeah, well. At least the coffee made it.” _And we made it -- at least we made it here, too._

\--

“Princeton is... closer to Virginia than the rest of the Ivies,” Gansey starts carefully, already sounding like he regrets bringing this up. Adam also regrets that Gansey brought it up.

“Gansey!” objects Blue. “Princeton is, like, the best school in the country. Also, what he means to say is ‘congratulations, Adam!’”

“Of course it’s a great school. And a great accomplishment to get in. But Adam could’ve gotten into Harvard, or Yale--”

“Princeton is just as well-regarded,” Adam cuts in, trying to swallow his defensiveness. “And Harvard has terrible grade inflation. Not everyone gets to be the best, that’s not how grades are supposed to work.”

“No, only Adam Parrish gets to win,” Blue says around a wicked little grin.

“Exactly,” Adam deadpans. “And orange is really my color, I think.”

“It really isn’t,” replies Blue, truthfully.

Gansey’s eyes dart to Ronan’s closed door, even though he already told Adam that Ronan has been gone at the Barns all day. “Have you told him yet?”

“I came straight here after I got my mail. So, no, not yet.”

“It’ll be fine. He’ll be fine.”

“Gansey,” Blue rolls her eyes. “Stop scaring Adam. And let him handle it.”

“Right, right. Sorry. It’ll be fine.”

“You already said that.”

“I know. But it will.”

Adam lingers around Monmouth longer than he originally intended. He doesn’t protest when Gansey texts Henry and the four of them go out for celebratory gelato. Back at Monmouth, the early spring sun starts to set, casting the entire room a vibrant rose gold. His friends look like bronze statues from where they sit on the couch, faces turned away from the gilded window. Adam didn’t know he could feel such joy and heartache in the same breath.

He knows that he’s putting off going to the Barns. Gansey isn’t wrong to be apprehensive, but neither was he wrong to say it would be fine. Adam can’t ask Ronan to be happy about a separation that’s four years at a minimum, more likely indefinite; he himself can’t even be happy about that part. But he knows Ronan will be pleased at Adam’s happiness, at his success, even if he doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t want to ask of Ronan more than he can give -- but then again, Ronan has always given him so much.

Adam’s stomach twists at that thought, which he takes as a sign he really needs to get moving. Just as he’s convincing his body to stand up and gather his small pile of things back into his bag, the rumble of tires over gravel stops his progress and cuts Henry off mid-sentence.

A moment later, Ronan bursts through the door, Opal a half-step behind. They both pause at the crowd, surprised at the company. Opal trills, “party!”

Gansey looks at Adam, eyebrows raised in a question. Adam shakes his head. “Sure, a little party. I -- got into Princeton today.” His hand is still halfway into his backpack; he pulls out the letter and shakes it a little.

Ronan stares Adam straight in the eye, expression betraying nothing. “Of course you did.” He gives Adam the slightest hint of a nod, then snaps his fingers to capture Opal’s attention. Her hungry eyes are fixed on Adam’s acceptance letter. Ignoring Ronan, she darts toward Adam, who holds the paper out of her reach and captures her in a one-armed headlock disguised as a hug.

It’s not the end of it, hardly even the start of it, but for now -- it’s enough.

Opal still tucked into his side, Adam spins around to meet Gansey’s eye. _It’s fine_ , he mouths, drawing out the ‘i’ and not bothering to hide the suggestion of a smirk quirking the corner of his mouth. Gansey frowns back, but his eyes sparkle; he looks happy in spite of himself.

\--

Gansey is promptly enveloped into a tight knot between his parents and sister after the Aglionby graduation ceremony is finally over, leaving Adam and Blue to linger hesitantly outside of their immediate orbit.

Besides Blue, no one is here for Adam, and after an initial cursory glance into the audience, he’s given up looking. Blue’s eyes are wandering through the crowd, and she doesn’t look at Adam when she asks, “do you wish he’d come?”

“Not as much as he’s glad he didn’t,” Adam says, and means it. It’s a simple cost-benefit analysis; he knows what it would have cost Ronan to come back here. If Ronan has mostly stopped begrudging Adam his diploma, his drive for academic success, Adam can lighten up on his end, too. “Child would’ve had a heart attack if he saw Ronan, here, anyway. The whole day would be ruined for everyone. Donations for next year would plummet.”

“Fair point.”

“Besides, it’s about the journey, not the destination, right?”

“When the destination is Princeton, Adam, I think it’s definitely about the destination.”

He turns to look at her, then, trying to find a trace of resentment or envy in her eyes. He’s glad that he can’t. “Okay, it’s at least a little about the destination. But it’s about everything else, too.”

Blue gives him a smile at that, small but genuine. “Everything else, and more to come.”

\--

The night after graduation, they have one more gathering at Monmouth, Gansey and Blue, Ronan and Adam, and even Henry Cheng, despite a token objection from Ronan regarding his attendance.

“Why is Cheng coming, anyway? I don’t care about giving _him_ some grand send-off. More like fuck off.”

The corners of Adam’s mouth twitch, but he refuses to give Ronan the satisfaction of breaking into a full smile.

Gansey saves him by answering, loudly, that “Henry’s been a great friend for seven months, Ronan. You’ll get used to him; you always do,” which he punctuates with a pointed look at Ronan’s legs thrown over Adam’s lap, Adam's hand thumbing at the base of Ronan’s spine. The two of them are sprawled on the floor, an open, messy knot of long, loose limbs. The couch, directly behind them, remains empty.

“Shit, I don’t want two boyfriends, Dick. That’s really more your jam.”

The low sound of the Fisker pulling into the lot is clear through all the open windows, a poor attempt at fighting the sticky heat of Virginia summer. “Speaking of,” Adam says, not moving from the floor. His shirt is sticking to his back. Ronan’s pants are sticking to his front. It should be gross, probably, but he’s unbothered.

Henry enters grandly, holding the door open for Blue with exaggerated flourish. His other hand is holding a bottle of bronze liquid that probably cost more than Adam makes in a week. “Good evening, gentlefriends.”

Ronan makes a _ccccclhck_ sound from the back of his throat. Adam coughs. Gansey’s face lights up in an enormous smile. It’s the beginning of the night at the end of everything.

\--

Adam’s lease at St. Agnes ends June 30, a few weeks after graduation. Adam has lived in his little room above the church for over a year now, and while it hadn’t become home, exactly, it had become something, a hard-won little slice of the world that belonged to him. He can’t imagine the room is in high enough demand that he couldn’t easily extend for another two months until he leaves for Princeton, but something about the end date feels final.

He thinks about the end of the lease frequently, the printed letters spelling out June Thirtieth, Two-Thousand Thirteen, his initials scrawled beside it. He thinks about finishing an evening shift at the garage and driving the winding Virginia roads to Singer’s Falls through a late summer sunset. He thinks about wanting something but not knowing how to ask for it.

It feels like everything’s really ending now, this whole terrible, wonderful ordeal that brought nightmares and dreams to life in equal parts.

He and Ronan lay in the grass outside one of the cow barns. The evening is magically and pleasantly void of mosquitos. Opal zigs and zags through a nearby copse of trees, chasing fireflies. Late evening lingers, warm and slow, not yet slipping into night.

“You heading back soon, Parrish?”

“Mm,” Adam jolts, having just started to doze off. “No, I can stay. I don’t start tomorrow ‘til ten.”

“Living large these days, Ivy League.”

“Yeah.” Adam pauses. If ever there were a time to mention something, that time is now. “My lease is up at the end of the month.”

He waits. Ronan does not say, “let me talk to them.” He does not say, “fuck that, move in here.” He does not say anything. Ronan is waiting, too.

Adam turns his head so that he’s facing Ronan. His bad ear presses into the grass; it tickles. He finds Ronan is already looking at him. Still waiting.

It takes a lot for Adam to swallow his pride and keep his face even and maintain eye contact with Ronan, but he does. It takes even more for him to whisper, “ask me,” but he does. “Ask me,” he says again after a long, silent moment.

Ronan moves his hand, rubs his thumb over Adam’s cheekbone and down his jaw. “Stay.”

Adam does.

**Author's Note:**

> I mostly enjoyed writing this in little bits and pieces, which felt like it took a long time. With the Opal short story coming out later this month, though, I wanted to get this completed before then, in the unlikely event something in that story conflicted with anything written here (or the world in my head in which this fic was written). So part of me wanted to keep adding more little bits and pieces to this story forever, and the other part is happy to have it done, even if it's not perfect.
> 
> Title is from Stockholm by Atlas Genius.
> 
> I'm probably doing it wrong, but I'm on [tumblr](http://korvidkids.tumblr.com).


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